Atheists: Is stealing wrong? If so, explain why.

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pandabear
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26 Dec 2008, 8:02 am

slowmutant wrote:
As Christians, I think we are allowed to defend ourselves and our property. There's nothing wrong with seeking justice for ourselves, is there?

Just my $.02


Not if you're really a Christian.

Luke 6:27-30:
Quote:
"Love your enemies, do good to those that hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you. If anyone hits you on one cheek, let him hit you on the other one too; if someone takes your coat, let him have your shirt as well. Give to everyone who asks you for something, and when someone takes what is yours, do not ask for it back."


Luke 6:35:
Quote:
"Love your enemies and do good to them. lend and expect nothing back."


Matthew 5:39-42:
Quote:
"If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, let him slap you on the left cheek, too. And if someone takes you to court to sue you for your shirt, let him have your coat as well. And if one of the occupation troops forces you to carry his pack one mile, carry it two miles. When someone asks you for something, give it too him."


If you protect yourself or your property, or seek justice for yourself, then you are no longer a Christian.



anna-banana
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26 Dec 2008, 8:05 am

ed wrote:
Ragtime, I deeply resent your concept that it takes a belief in God in order to live a "moral" life. Perhaps that's true for those ignorant souls who never learned to think for themselves, but not for the rest of us. You can keep your "religion" if you choose, but don't think that it makes you a better person than anybody else.


A-men!


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raggle-taggle-gypsy
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26 Dec 2008, 8:12 am

I think we run into problems when we try to generalise moral rules for all parts of society. This was much simpler when religious texts were being written because

1. Societies were simpler then, and (possibly) easier to understand
2. Self enforcement of rules was easier when people believed in Gods.

Now we live in highly complex societies and we have a highly complex division of personality types. Mothers, Soldiers, Farmers and film stars all play roles that society has deemed necessary.

If all mothers became farmers, we might solve world hunger, but only at the risk of a drastic reduction in the world’s population.
If all soldiers became engineers, we would lose our appetite for war and have our asses handed to us when the aliens or the Chinese invade. And with so many engineers on the job market, rewards would decrease and the impetus to become an engineer would be smaller, prompting a migration of brain power from the engineering field, after which our technology would reduce in quality.

We can generalise this to a lot of occupations and behaviours. When one part of the societal equation is changed, there are reactions big and small, now and later that we can’t predict.

The same is true of theft. If everyone stole, society would collapse. Congratulations Einsteins :lol: But likewise, if everyone was a farmer, society would collapse, and yet growing food is a good thing, no?

A complete end to theft would require big changes to society - rigid control and harsh punishments. This would have its own impact and change the character of our societies, perhaps to something more like Saudi Arabia.

So if theft is a systemic part of our societies, how can we judge it with such a simple category as wrong? What are the wider societal benefits of theft?


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b9
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26 Dec 2008, 9:24 am

anna-banana wrote:
it's just a story to illustrate the point, which is- if everyone would steal from others there only would be chaos and, as someone said before, there would be no society.


well i am sorry i am not very emotionally smart. i can not see how people think much.
your story is no doubt valid, but it is lost on me because i am silly.

anna-banana wrote:
so it's not a religious issue, it doesn't stem from spirituality or even morality, but from the fact that homo sapiens are social beings and stealing goes against social.


yes there must be a solid notion of deservedness, and to steal from that is parasitic.

anna-banana wrote:
edited to add: I can agree with you when it comes to stealing from the dead, but that's not an issue here, it was only a part of the story which was a hyperbole anyway, and only to make a point.


ok i am sorry i commented because i had an autistic view i guess.
i am trying to upload a big file to youtube, and i am distracted.

ana-banana could also mean "ana"-"ban"-"anna"

if your name is "anna" then it is possible to ban "anna" from your vision.

but i am thinking in a very concrete way and it is better suited to things other than communication.

nighty night.



anna-banana
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26 Dec 2008, 9:32 am

b9 wrote:

ok i am sorry i commented because i had an autistic view i guess.
i am trying to upload a big file to youtube, and i am distracted.

ana-banana could also mean "ana"-"ban"-"anna"

if your name is "anna" then it is possible to ban "anna" from your vision.

but i am thinking in a very concrete way and it is better suited to things other than communication.

nighty night.


lol I never noticed that before. maybe that's some subconscious self-hatred or something, I would have asked Freud but he's dead now and only he knew what people really think :wink:

no worries about the confusion, glad to explain (I sometimes have a hard time cracking your metaphors too b9 :wink: )


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pandabear
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26 Dec 2008, 9:38 am

raggle-taggle-gypsy wrote:
1. Societies were simpler then, and (possibly) easier to understand


I really don't think so.

raggle-taggle-gypsy wrote:
What are the wider societal benefits of theft?


It is an extremely efficient means of transfering wealth or goods from one party to another.



ducasse
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26 Dec 2008, 9:54 am

Ragtime wrote:
As a Christian, I do believe stealing is wrong, but I also believe that, from an atheistic/evolutionary standpoint, stealing can be justified just as strongly as it can be attacked. What do you think?


What's bugging me here is that there is an assumption there is such a thing as an 'atheistic/evolutionary standpoint' which people use to derive morality.

Atheism is the lack of belief in Gods, or the active disbelief in Gods. The theory of evolution is our best explanation of the development of life. They are 2 different things that cannot be said to coalesce to form a moral standpoint.

The acceptance of the theory of evolution has no implications for the development of a moral code. The acceptance of Atheism merely makes more obvious what should be obvious to everyone anyway: that morality is not prescribed by a book or an institution claiming divine authority, it is something we arrive at by using our powers of reason to discover what course of action leads to an increase in human well-being & a reduction of human-suffering.



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26 Dec 2008, 10:19 am

There is one side of this that has not yet been covered. When someone uses a pirated piece of software that he would not have purchased because he had not the finances, is he stealing? He is not taking any income from the originator of the software since he would not have been able to legally purchase it anyway. Is this stealing?



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26 Dec 2008, 10:27 am

history_of_psychiatry wrote:
Stealing is a MORAL issue. Not a religious issue. There are atheists that have morals and atheists who don't. There are christians who have morals and christians who don't.


Yes, but the difference is that atheists can't logically support morals, beyond morality being merely a personal preference,
and thus something a thief can vaildly reject for himself, because when he says that stealing isn't "wrong for him",
any atheist's argument against that sentiment is not based on anything that is even logically compatible with atheism.
With atheism, you are left with believing in evolution, which teaches survival of the fittest as the one and only way that progress (evolution) occurs, whether we like it or not.
I.e., when you and your friend are starving in the desert, it's best to kill him and take his food and water. An atheist cannot call that even slightly wrong, and back up his statement with reason. After all, you're doing this to survive, so it's fully defensible to those who put a premium on survival, and to anyone who accepts survival of the fittest as the reigning concept of life. In fact, attacking your potential competition ruthlessly is what you should do based on the evolutionary theory of how progress is made: you're simply advancing the species by taking every cruel advantage you can of other people, by the evolutionary model. Who can sat you are in the wrong except a religious person? No one. The quote, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" is what we're left with: pure moral relativism, when stealing isn't wrong, but is rather just someone else's version of what is right.

Stealing is survival of the fittest:
It's the smarter and/or more powerful annexing the property of the less intelligent and/or weaker for one's own furtherance.
That's simply the way life works, under the evolutionary model: Attack them before they attack you.

There is no rational defense of morality within an atheistic framework. Anything deemed "morality" must come from outside atheism, and indeed from outside the physical world itself. For physical survival (which is the only kind atheists believe in), simple expediency is best: morality when it benefits you materially, and immorality when it benefits you materially.


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Last edited by Ragtime on 26 Dec 2008, 10:54 am, edited 18 times in total.

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26 Dec 2008, 10:31 am

slowmutant wrote:
DentArthurDent wrote:
slowmutant wrote:
As Christians, I think we are allowed to defend ourselves and our property. There's nothing wrong with seeking justice for ourselves, is there?

Just my $.02

But this is not a religious issue

You're right. It's a morality issue.

You're right. Religion has nothing to do with morality.


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Sand
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26 Dec 2008, 10:34 am

Ragtime wrote:
history_of_psychiatry wrote:
Stealing is a MORAL issue. Not a religious issue. There are atheists that have morals and atheists who don't. There are christians who have morals and christians who don't.


Yes, but the difference is that atheists can't logically support morals beyond morality being merely a personal preference,
and thus something a thief can vaildly reject, because stealing isn't "wrong, for him".


No. Morality is a social obligation which may be incorporated into religion which incorporates all sorts of behavior, sex, diet, speech, dress etc. But the function of morality is social not religious.



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26 Dec 2008, 10:36 am

Raggy, why do the religious steal?
And when that occurs, why is it different?



Last edited by Averick on 26 Dec 2008, 10:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

anna-banana
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26 Dec 2008, 10:36 am

Sand wrote:
There is one side of this that has not yet been covered. When someone uses a pirated piece of software that he would not have purchased because he had not the finances, is he stealing? He is not taking any income from the originator of the software since he would not have been able to legally purchase it anyway. Is this stealing?


I'm sure Ragtime has some Bible quote about Internet piracy :wink:


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anna-banana
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26 Dec 2008, 10:38 am

Ragtime wrote:
history_of_psychiatry wrote:
Stealing is a MORAL issue. Not a religious issue. There are atheists that have morals and atheists who don't. There are christians who have morals and christians who don't.


Yes, but the difference is that atheists can't logically support morals, beyond morality being merely a personal preference,
and thus something a thief can vaildly reject for himself, because when he says that stealing isn't "wrong for him",
any atheist's argument against that sentiment is not based on anything that is even logically compatible with atheism.
With atheism, you are left with believing in evolution, which teaches survival of the fittest as the only means of ultimate survival. I.e., when you and your friend are starving in the desert, it's best to kill him and take his food and water. An atheist cannot call that wrong, and back that up with reason. Stealing is survival of the fittest:
It's the smarter and/or more powerful annexing the property of the less intelligent and/or weaker.

There is no rational defense of morality within an atheistic framework. Anything deemed "morality" must come from outside atheism, and indeed from outside the physical world itself. For physical survival (which is the only kind atheists believe in), simple expediency is best: morality when it benefits you materially, and immorality when it benefits you materially.


have you not been reading the replies so far...?


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26 Dec 2008, 10:38 am

Averick wrote:
Raggy, why do the religious steal? And when that occurs, why is it different?

When done in the name of God, even the most heinous and brutal crimes may be justified. :roll:


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26 Dec 2008, 10:41 am

Yes, stealing is wrong, why? because if you steal from me I will sick my pitbull dog on you!.